It’s March, and another thrilling Premier League season is reaching its climax.
Arsenal look to have finally shaken off Manchester City and will win the league, but the battle for the Champions League and relegation places is as spicy as ever.
For long parts of this season, Liverpool and Manchester United were struggling so badly that a top 4 place for Chelsea looked like it would be the minimum they could achieve,
But Chelsea’s latest results, combined with an upsurge from their northern rivals, has turned everything around. The win against West Ham at the end of January felt like it was going to be a moment we kicked on from. Instead, it was the sign of struggles to come.
In February, we beat Wolves but drew with Burnley and Leeds, ending up with 3 points from a month where we needed 9. March hasn’t been much better either, with a win over Aston Villa not helping in comparison to defeats against Arsenal and Newcastle.
Chelsea’s stats are trending in the wrong direction too. We have one clean sheet in the last 14 games, and that was against Hull City in the FA Cup. Our xG against is trending up, and our xG trending down.
Right now, the table doesn’t make pretty reading. We’re now in 6th, on 48 points. Liverpool are on 49, Aston Villa on 51, Man U on 54. There are 8 games left for all of us to play.
The good news – in some ways – is that we still play Man U and Liverpool in our run in. We can still claw back points in those games. But on our current form, that won’t be easy. None of our games look easy – relegation battling Nottingham Forest, Everton away, relegation battling Tottenham Hotspur, Man City… our saving grace might be the fact that we face Sunderland on the final day, who will hopefully have nothing to play for by then.
But would you really back a team in the form we’re in now to make it to that final day with a chance? All we can do is go game by game, and beating Everton this weekend is obviously vital.
If we can get the job done on Saturday night, we go into a run of games after the international break knowing it’s all in our hands. If we lose it, it’s going to be a miserable fortnight all around at Stamford Bridge, for fans and for players.
